When we took a look at the reference version of AMD’s Radeon HD 6990, we found a board that was impressive on a number of fronts, though not all the impressions were positive. The HD 6990 builds in two full Radeon HD 6970 GPUs onto a single board, each with its own 2GB of frame buffer. In our initial testing, performance looked to be very fast, but the reference board was also pretty noisy under load. At last, XFX shipped us an actual retail Radeon HD 6990, so we’re finally able to render a verdict on AMD’s killer card.

We all know competition is great for consumers, but AMD appears to be jonesing for an all an all-out war with Nvidia over the title “World’s Fastest Graphics Card”. Both companies recently released dual GPU masterpieces, but both AMD and Nvidia are laying claim to crown, and AMD’s Public Relations Manager Dave Erskine is asking them to prove it. With reference to the AMD Radeon HD 6990 Erskine claims it was “designed to be a game-changer”, and they can back this up with benchmarks.

There are some immutable laws of the natural world. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Anything that can go wrong, will, and at the worst possible time. And finally, any tech discussion involving Gordon and Nathan will inevitably turn into a debate about Star Wars. Andy and Alan join Gordon and Nathan in Episode 169 of the No BS, Some Star Wars Podcast to discuss a new Gigabyte X58 board, AMD's dual-GPU Radeon HD 6990 "Antilles," and (perhaps inevitably) Wedge Antilles' raison d'etre as a starfighter pilot. Also, Western Digital buys Hitachi GST, the future of storage, and incredible feedback from Alan's stupid Mac microphone. With a bonus appearance by former boot and Maximum PC editor and current Maximum Tech editor Mike Brown!

Do you have a tech question? A comment? A tale of technological triumph? Just need to get something off your chest? A secret to share? Email us at maximumpcpodcast@gmail.com or call our 24-hour No BS Podcast hotline at 877.404.1337 x1337--operators are not standing by.

Boutique system builder CyberPower wasted no time announcing the availability of AMD's newly minted Radeon HD 6990 graphics card across the company's entire lineup of desktop gaming PCs. That includes CyberPower's more affordable Gamer Dragon and Ultra series. Getting an entire system built around AMD's latest dual-GPU videocard might be cheaper than you think.

News and rumor site Fudzilla claims to have received confirmation that AMD's dual-GPU Radeon HD 6990 videocard, otherwise known as "Antilles," won't show up on store shelves until the first quarter of 2011.

As the water cooler banter goes, AMD originally wanted to ship its dual-chip card before the end of the year, and if that's true, it raises of the question of why it's being postponed. It could be that AMD wants to fine tune the architecture and drivers, or maybe there's a problem that requires additional time to address. It's all speculation, with the only thing we know for sure (assuming Fudzilla's sources are solid) is that there won't be any Radeon HD 6990 cards in Santa's sleigh this year.

A recently leaked slide of the HD 6990 part reveals that the card will come with 3840 stream processors, 4GB of GDDR5 memory, and deliver up to 6.0TFLPS. Under load, the HD 6990 is supposed to draw a manageable 300W, and 30W when idle.